Why I Let My Preschooler Hit Me

Shortly after my daughter’s
second birthday, the hitting began. I’m not just talking about a random swipe
here and there. No, this kid was brutal. If she was upset about anything, for
any reason, she was taking a swing—a hard one, and sometimes with objects in her hand.

It was my least favorite stage
of parenting by far.

Eventually, we got the hitting
under control. It turned out my daughter had some sensory processing issues, and
being too young to really express what was going on, hitting became the way she
voiced her discomfort. As soon as we started dealing with the sensory issues
(and teaching her how to communicate the struggles she was having), the hitting
stopped.

A few months ago, my daughter
hit me for the first time in almost a year. It caught me by surprise, mostly
because this hit was nothing like her previous attacks. This time, we had been
rolling around on the floor, playing, tickling and laughing hysterically.

She hadn’t hit me because she
was angry. She had hit me because she was caught up in a bit of roughhousing
and, apparently, hitting had seemed like a logical part of that game.

The good news was, she hadn’t
hit at full force—it was clear her intention had been to play, not to hurt. The
bad news was, she had still hit me. And in the face no less.

I’m mostly convinced that I make mistakes as a
parent every single day. But I’m pretty sure this isn’t one of them.

I immediately stood up and
employed all the same old tricks for ending the hitting we had used before. “We
don’t hit!” I said sternly, before walking to the other room and leaving her
alone to think about what she had done.

But … something didn’t feel
right about that. The reaction didn’t fit the crime. She hadn’t been trying to
hurt me, she had just been trying to play.

Over the next few weeks, the
theme continued. We would be laughing and wrestling, engaging in that
roughhousing play I’m told fathers
are so great at (and is apparently quite
beneficial), she would hit, and I would immediately stand and end the game.

Except, the message wasn’t
really getting through. And perhaps even more importantly, I wasn’t totally
sure it should be.

I’ll be the first to admit that
roughhousing does not come naturally to me. I’m the mom who would rather curl
up in a chair and read my girl a book, or paint her nails, over rolling around
on the floor and tossing her about. But I’m also a single mom, kind of
committed to doing everything in my power to ensure my girl gets as much out of
childhood as she would have gotten with both a mother and father in the
picture. So some days, we wrestle. Because I distinctly remember that being
something I loved about how my father played with me.

So then I started to wonder if
maybe this hitting was different. She wasn’t hitting to be mean, or to hurt me,
or even to make a point. She was hitting because she was getting caught up in
the rough play and was kind of just taking it up a notch.

Was this normal? Where had she
even learned it from?

I sat down and tried to talk to
my girl one day about what was happening when she hit. The first thing I
quickly realized was that she didn’t even think of what she was doing as
hitting. “I bonk you, Mommy,” she said earnestly.

I have no idea where she got
that concept from, but somehow, in her mind, she was equating this playful
hitting with something else entirely … with “bonking” me in fun, not hitting me
in anger.

I started to watch my friend’s
husband’s playing with their kids. One thing was immediately very clear: Their
version of roughhousing was far rougher than anything I was doing with my girl.
These men I deeply respect as parents were truly tossing their kids around, and
they were taking it even more than they were giving it, fielding punches,
kicks and full body slams like it was part of their job.

Never once were they stopping
the games to announce rules like “no hitting allowed.” These dads were in it for the
full-contact sport of it all.

And I wondered if maybe, just
maybe, watching them play was where my daughter had gotten the idea of
“bonking.” Perhaps she was just trying to replicate with me some of what she
was seeing her friends get from playing with their fathers.

That led me down a rabbit hole
of research,
where again and again I was coming across scientific evidence that this rough
play is really beneficial to brain development and problem solving abilities.
Kids who engage in rough play with their parents and siblings have a higher
emotional intelligence and a stronger moral compass. They get along better with
their peers and experience greater levels of joy.

My little girl doesn’t have a
daddy who is rolling around on the floor with her, giving her those
opportunities to play rough and not hold herself back. But she does have a mom
who is trying.

When you think about it, that
kind of makes sense. This type of physical play is so different from anything
else they do in their day-to-day lives. So of course it facilitates different
connections and activates different parts of the brain.

As the only child in a single
parent home, the only person my girl is going to get that rough play with is
me, which meant I needed to rethink the rules I was enforcing upon that time.

I realized my daughter really wasn’t hitting hard; she wasn’t trying to hurt me. No matter what I
did—ending the game, fake crying, walking away—she was still so clearly craving
this type of rough play that her attempts at “bonking” me continued.

Of course, whether she meant to
hurt me or not, getting hit in the eye stings! So, I needed to lay some ground rules down. That was when we decided,
together, that “bonking” could be allowed between the two of us, but only when
we were playing, never in the face, and she was never allowed to “bonk” anyone
else.

Ever since those rules were
declared, she’s stuck to them completely.

Sometimes we’ll be wrestling
now, and I’ll watch her stop what she’s doing, pull back, size up the
situation, and then land a “bonk” squarely on my arm. She laughs maniacally when
she does, so incredibly proud of herself for the hit. And I’m proud too, because
it’s so clear she slowed herself down first to make sure she didn’t break the
rules and to make sure she didn’t hit me
in the face.

She’s not hitting her friends,
and she’s not even hitting me outside of this rough play. But allowing that one
break in our rules, giving her the opportunity to hit me in play, has
delighted her to no end. Her favorite game right now, by far, is wrestling on
the ground with mom.

I'm not totally sure I'm doing
any of this right. In fact, I’m mostly convinced that I make mistakes as a
parent every single day. But I’m pretty sure this isn’t one of them.

My little girl doesn’t have a
daddy who is rolling around on the floor with her, giving her those
opportunities to play rough and not hold herself back. But she does have a mom
who is trying. And who is starting to learn that not every rule is meant to be
applied to every situation.

Sometimes, it’s OK to let your
kid “bonk” you.

Just so long as you’re right
there, ready to take them down in a fury of tickles as soon as they do.